


you're gonna carry that weight

by warsfeil



Category: Tales of Crestoria
Genre: F/M, Found Family, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:01:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25534771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warsfeil/pseuds/warsfeil
Summary: “If you’re gonna kill me, you wanna wait until after dinner?” Vicious says, once he’s sure the thing is dead. He shoots it one last time to make sure; it jerks with the impact, but doesn’t move otherwise, the bullets from Vicious’ guns fading into nonexistence and leaving only the wounds behind.“No,” Misella says, and she hefts up the boar with strength that would be surprising if it was literally any other delicate young maiden. “Die now. Then there’ll be more for the rest of us to eat.”
Relationships: Aegis Alver/Kanata Hjuger, Aegis Alver/Misella, Aegis Alver/Vicious, Kanata Hjuger/Misella, Kanata Hjuger/Misella/Vicious/Aegis Alver, Kanata Hjuger/Vicious, Misella/Vicious
Comments: 10
Kudos: 74





	you're gonna carry that weight

**Author's Note:**

> i'm writing this with exactly 4 chapters of the main story out, so the entire thing is almost guaranteed to be wrong as later canon comes out. doesn't matter had fun. at any rate, pretend this is an au because it does not contain yuna or meatkyu/nikyuu, thank u.
> 
> underage tag because i'm not sure how old misella and kanata are. like 17? that's usually how old tales protags are? can we go with 17?

“Pay attention,” Misella snaps, and Vicious feels the heat level rise in a flurry that suggests that someone is about to make the next vision orb headline read _Local Woman Burns Companion Alive; Found Debating Merits of Cannibalism_.

“I’m paying attention,” Vicious grouses, paying absolutely no attention. He didn’t know how he’d gotten roped into hunting for the latest in Misella’s never-ending quest for dinner meats, but -- no, that was a lie; he _did_ know, and it was because Kanata had insisted on being the one to set the fire up with Aegis, and then they’d said they’d draw lots if they’d needed, and…

“If you aren’t going to pay attention,” Misella says, turning on him in a flurry of motion, skirts rustling across the undergrowth. “Then you could at least have the decency to go ahead and get yourself killed.”

“Killed by what? You?” Vicious asks.

“No,” Misella says, raising her arm. Flames start to lick around her hand, the magic given shape all too quickly, and Vicious realizes abruptly that it’s being aimed behind him instead of at him. “By that.”

Vicious does a backflip -- thank fuck he’s quick on his feet -- which gives him enough time and distance to see the boar attacking them both, and he sets a few solid shots into the thing’s hide mid-air before he lands next to Misella.

“Hm,” she says, disappointed, and shoots off a ball of flame that drifts a little too close to Vicious to be entirely accidental. 

“If you’re gonna kill me, you wanna wait until after dinner?” Vicious says, once he’s sure the thing is dead. He shoots it one last time to make sure; it jerks with the impact, but doesn’t move otherwise, the bullets from Vicious’ guns fading into nonexistence and leaving only the wounds behind.

“No,” Misella says, and she hefts up the boar with strength that would be surprising if it was literally any other delicate young maiden. “Die now. Then there’ll be more for the rest of us to eat.”

“Man, you’ve really got a hot-streak a mile long,” Vicious says. “If it wasn’t on such a runt, I’d say it was attracti--”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because Misella swings the entire back end of the boar into him hard enough that the wind, words, and laughter are all knocked clean out of Vicious in one fell swoop.

“Damn,” he wheezes, slightly impressed.

-

“Misella,” Kanata says, concern on his face. “Hold on, your dress is caught.”

Misella draws up short with pressing urgency, and only tilts her head to look at Kanata out of her peripheral as he carefully untangles the edge of her dress from a particularly vengeful tree.

“Thank you,” Misella says, and offers Kanata one of her smiles that’s soft and careful.

“It’s no problem,” Kanata offers, giving her an easy grin of his own. “Here, I’ll walk ahead of you so I can bend the branches back!” He steps in front of her, and she allows this, falling into step behind him.

“Doesn’t he know you’re not going to break that easy?” Vicious asks. Aegis shoots him a look, but doesn’t comment on the matter; he’s still exhausted from wrestling the money pouch away from all of them at the previous town.

“Be quiet,” Misella says.

“Or is it that you’re afraid _he’ll_ break that easily?” Vicious asks, and Misella looks at him for a long moment.

“Kanata won’t break so easily,” she says, softly. Vicious doesn’t think it’s him that she’s trying to convince.

-

“Shit,” Vicious says. Misella grunts, which is a better response than he could hope for, all things considered. “You good?”

“I’m fine,” Misella says, but when she forces herself up there’s a skid of red on the ice, and she’s shivering harder than she should be from just the cold alone.

“Fine looks a hell of a lot like wounded to me,” Vicious says, and she settles him with a calm, cold expression. 

“Can you see Kanata?” she asks, and that’s when Vicious figures out she must be _really_ hurt, because why else wouldn’t she just stand up herself and see? Vicious pushes himself upright, scraping against the cave floor and looking up above them. 

“Nope,” Vicious says, and then rubs at his head. “He’ll be fine.”

“I need to--” Misella cuts off with a sudden hiss, and it just validates what Vicious already knew. He steps over, puts a hand on her shoulder, and shoves her backwards; she doesn’t do anything except let out another grunt.

“You need to let me see,” Vicious says, dropping down next to her. He moves his hand off her shoulder, and she glowers at him with her best patented Misella glare.

“Kanata might be hurt,” Misella says.

“You’re not gettin’ to him when you can’t even stand,” Vicious says, “and he’s got Aegis to look after him. That’s what those knightly types do, right?”

“I can stand,” Misella says, but she makes no move to do so. Vicious levels her with a look of his own, spreading his hands wide.

“All I’ve got is a headache, so I can do this all day,” Vicious says. “You want me to wait until you pass out?”

“I’m fine,” Misella insists, but she moves her hand and Vicious whistles. 

“That’s pretty nasty,” he says. He reaches out and presses his fingers against the edge of the wound, and she grabs him by the wrist in a sudden, jerking movement that makes her freeze. 

“Alright, alright,” Vicious says. “I’m not gonna make it any worse.”

“You’re certainly not making it any better,” Misella says. 

Vicious snorts. It’s been a hot minute since he’s had to do first aid or anything, so he considers her for a moment.

“How attached to this dress of yours are you?” Vicious asks.

“What?” Misella responds, and Vicious takes that as a ‘not very’ and sets to ripping chunks off the bottom hem. “What are you doing?!”

“Bandages!” Vicious chirps, cheerful and easy as he holds up the long strips. “They’re not ideal since you’ve worn this damn thing to death, but they’ll do in a pinch.”

“That’s,” Misella says, very cautiously, “almost practical.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Vicious says, “it just wouldn’t be any fun if you up and died on us. Kanata’d be too busy grieving to be trying to overthrow the world anymore.” He pauses, because it sounds too much like friendship even to his ears, and so he uses the chance to start wrapping the bandages around Misella’s torso. “Anyway, the dress already looked like shit.” 

“Shut up,” Misella says, but there’s no heat in it, and she lifts her arms as high as she can to let him do his best to make sure she doesn’t bleed out into the nameless icy cavern they’ve fallen into. 

“Nah,” Vicious says, and wonders if he’s imagining her smile.

-

He winds up carrying her back, which means she passes out pretty quick, because there’s only so much he can do to try and mitigate the pain of jostling her back and forth. He’d insisted on the princess carry, and it turns out to be a good thing when she goes unconscious in his arms.

He gets out of the cave and still can’t see Kanata, so he weighs his options out against the fact that there’s still blood seeping through Misella’s makeshift bandages and decides to keep going. Assuming the cave didn’t send him too far off course, there’s a town nearby that he can probably con into healing her even if they recognize who he is. 

Vicious makes it into town two hours after dark, covered in blood, holding an unconscious girl in his arms, and he’s pretty sure that at _least_ three people faint.

“Haha, I wish I’d known this was how to make a hell of an entrance!” Vicious says. He turns to the first person that looks scared half shitless instead of entirely shitless, and offers them a grin. “Seriously, though, you got a healer in this joint?”

“Uh,” the kid responds, and then points vaguely. Vicious sets off in that direction, the cacophony of chaos behind him, and it’s very satisfying and all but Misella’s breathing has been getting steadily shallower, so he’s aware that he’s on a pretty strict time limit.

“Hey!” Vicious says, when he kicks the door open. His hands are occupied with Misella, after all. “Anyone in here that can heal?”

There’s an old woman inside, and she looks in the vague direction of the door.

“Did you break down my door?” she asks, affronted, clearly blind. The entire house smells like incense and potions, so Vicious responds by stepping forward and setting Misella down. 

“Fix her and I’ll fix your damn door,” Vicious says, because even he knows how to rehang a basic door. 

The woman purses her lips, but stretches her hands out; Misella doesn’t move even when the woman puts a hand over her injury, and Vicious taps his fingers on his arms impatiently. 

“Don’t worry,” the woman says. She stands up with confidence, her hands going to the drawers of her cabinets without faltering or missing. “She’ll be fine. You must care very about her to have gotten here from the caves so quickly.”

“What,” Vicious says. “I’ll be outside.”

“Fix my door on your way out,” the woman requests.

-

Vicious doesn’t tell Misella anything about the trip to the village. He brags a little about how many people he terrified, he tries to get out of fixing the door, and she punches him in the solar plexus until he relents and fixes everything he’d damaged (which was the door and then all the liquor he drank while waiting for Misella to wake up).

“Here,” he says, instead, and tosses her a bundle of fabric. “I got you a new dress. Not like you can wear the old one.”

Misella purses her lips, because accepting anything from Vicious is probably a fundamental violation of most of what Misella stands for as a person.

“Thank you,” she says, finally, and turns quick on her heels to vanish back inside and put it on. She comes back out, and Vicious doesn’t tell her that he had to get the opinion of three other people on the dress because he was told his taste in fashion was absolutely awful (which he’ll admit; he’s not wearing it to look good to anyone but himself).

“It’s cute,” Vicious says.

“I’ll burn it,” Misella threatens. 

“Then you’ll be naked,” Vicious offers, “which is way more fun for me than for you, so you’re not gonna do it.”

Misella fixes Vicious with a long, considering look that makes him feel distinctly like he’s fucked up somewhere between the cave and now in a way he can’t quite put his finger on.

“Hm,” she says. “Let’s go. We have to find Kanata.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

-

They find Kanata. There’s relief in that, and Vicious makes sure to insult Kanata for getting lost in the first place to make up for the feeling of it climbing through his veins. Misella protests automatically, and then there’s a verbal fight that borders on physical for the thirty seconds it takes for Aegis to get annoyed enough to shout.

Then they’re back to normal, just like that. Aegis insists on seeing Misella’s wound, and Kanata compliments the dress, which makes Misella happy until she has to admit that it’s from Vicious, and it’s on the verge of becoming an entire _thing_ so Vicious insults Kanata’s hair until they’re all bickering and Misella ends the entire conversation with a swift elbow to Vicious’ stomach.

They stop to camp, at Aegis’ urges, and Misella leaves with him to find meat, Aegis insisting that he go along to ensure they have some sort of vegetable that only he’ll bother to eat. 

“Thank you,” Kanata says, softly, with a curious light in his eyes.

“What,” Vicious says, and makes a face, because Kanata is looking at him like he’s a precious object and it makes Vicious want to remove his own skin to escape.

“For taking care of Misella,” Kanata clarifies. “Even though you don’t like her.”

“I don’t… not… like her,” Vicious says, very slowly, and Kanata offers him a grin that makes the sun look like a shitty lamp. 

“I think she doesn’t not like you, too,” Kanata says.

“I don’t care about a thing like that,” Vicious says, and takes a larger portion of meat at dinner just to make Misella threaten to stab him with her fork.

-

It comes to a head, finally: Aegis and Kanata have seen fit to leave Vicious and Misella alone and unattended for more than five minutes, which results, as it usually does, in a fight. He insults her, and she snipes at him, and then it escalates until she’s kneeing him in the stomach.

This time, though, he aims his fall differently: he doubles over, lets his arms fall onto her shoulders and drops his head at the junction of her neck. Misella doesn’t freeze, but she doesn’t move, either.

“That hurts, you know,” Vicious says, languid and easy. Misella smells like fire and ash; she’s a match that Vicious lit just to see her burn, but she refuses to go out.

“Does it?” Misella asks. She reaches up, presses her hand against the area she’d just hit, indents the skin just enough that Vicious’ breath catches on an inhale. “Good.”

“You’re,” Vicious says, straightening back up but not quite letting go of Misella’s shoulders, “a hell of a person to travel with, you know that?”

Misella tilts her head, slightly, and finally: “There are worse people to travel with than you.”

Vicious grins, and she turns away, haughty and pristine, letting his arms fall between them. 

“I can’t think of any, of course,” she says, but her fire is still there: it’s on Vicious’ skin, it’s inside of him, and he hasn’t felt this warm in a long time.

-

From there, it’s small things: Kanata slips up when Misella suffers a minor dress malfunction from a monster attack, and then Vicious follows up with a particularly lewd suggestion of his own. Misella only hits him, and later, Kanata thanks him.

“Didn’t figure you were up for sharing, kid,” Vicious says, and Kanata looks at him, quizzically.

“Aren’t we all in this together?” 

Vicious doesn’t know how to reply to that, so he just makes a face, instead. 

When they camp together, in between villages and battles, they lay together, now: Misella, then Kanata, then Vicious, with Aegis doing his best to find his own port in a storm until Vicious, annoyed, reaches out at two in the morning and grabs him by the ankle to drag him down.

“If you kick me in the head again,” Vicious says, “I’ll show you a great transgression.”

Aegis puffs up, but then Misella raises her head, her eyes catching the remnants of the firelight.

“Don’t wake Kanata,” she says, and Aegis falls quiet. Vicious is pretty sure he doesn’t sleep.

-

“What,” Aegis says, “was your transgression? Was it--”

“No matter how many times you ask, I’m tellin’ you the same thing,” Vicious drawls, lazy and annoyed. He’s managed a makeshift hammock between two trees, and he intends to enjoy his brief reprieve from Misella and Kanata’s awkward hormonal gazes at each other while they’re off shopping.

“--Did you deserve it?” Aegis asks.

Vicious looks at him for a long moment. Aegis doesn’t look back, he’s staring at a fixed point on one of the trees, his brow knit hard together and a pensive, hurt look on his face. 

“Does it matter?” Vicious says, shrugging a shoulder up. “I sure as shit do now.”

“It matters,” Aegis says, so decisively that it feels like a lash across Vicious’ skin, an imprint he can’t get off. It feels like he’s getting more and more of those, these days, and he wonders how many more there’ll be until he changes into something else, until he can see a clear line between who he was and who is.

He doesn’t know if it’s such a bad thought, anymore.

“It doesn’t,” Vicious says, and reaches out, snaring Aegis by the belt loop and pulling him closer. It offsets the balance of the hammock, and all of Vicious’s weight rolls out until he’s staying where he is entirely by his support on Aegis’ hip.

“Why?” Aegis asks.

“Don’t know why you think I’m the kind of guy with an answer like that,” Vicious says, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, and Aegis sighs, but there’s a smile there, too, underneath all that grief and self-flagellation. When Aegis steps back, he does it slowly; he reaches out so Vicious can roll to his feet instead of on the ground.

“I thought,” Aegis says, finally, “that it would feel different than this, to be a transgressor. To travel with someone like you.”

“Yeah?” Vicious says. He climbs back into the hammock, determined to have his break despite all interruptions. 

Aegis looks at him, then, long and searching, and Vicious stares at him and then closes his eyes against it.

“Don’t oversleep,” Aegis says, apparently finding what he needed to and turning to leave. “I won’t save any dinner for you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

-

Vicious takes a sword through the stomach, which isn’t unusual. It’s not the first time and it’s not the last time, but the fact that he takes it to shield someone else -- well, that’s just the fucking kicker, isn’t it? He’s shoved backwards with the blow, and then he grins, knowing there’s blood between his teeth and knowing it’s going to make things even more fun.

“You’ve got balls!” Vicious says. “I’ll give you that!” Then he grabs the knight’s hand, rips the sword out of himself, and stabs the knight with it.

The rest of the group stares at him in terror, and Vicious can feel himself swaying where he stands, so he turns it into a violent lurch forward.

“Who’s next?!” he roars, and they scatter. He falls after they leave, and he’s caught by the sent of flowers and fire.

-

“--should really get him medical assistance.”

“From where? We’re kind of in enemy territory, here!”

“I stabbed him once and it didn’t do any good. I don’t think trash can die.”

Vicious can hear their voices, pounding in his skull, and he grunts just enough to show that he’s still alive and capable of some kinds of input.

“I’m fucking unkillable,” he slurs. He opens his eyes and the world slants hard, like he’s had too much alcohol. He sees Aegis above him, hands bloody, holding up bandages. “Don’t bother. I don’t need… I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding,” Aegis says.

“It’ll stop,” Vicious says. “Give it a minute.”

Vicious closes his eyes again. There’s a softness under his head that he’s pretty sure is someone’s lap, and there’s fingers carding through his hair very carefully, moving it away from the parts of him that were bloodied in battle.

“Didn’t know you cared, firebug,” Vicious says, and Misella flicks him in the forehead.

“Don’t be stupid,” she says.

-

Vicious is fine by morning, which is all that matters, because their little hideout wasn’t going to go unnoticed a whole lot longer than that. Aegis is out scouting, and Misella’s packing up the rest of their belongings, which leaves Kanata to help heave Vicious up.

“Where’s my coat,” Vicious says, and Kanata passes it over. It’s seen better days; it’s got a big patch on it where the sword exited Vicious’ body, and he lets out an annoyed noise but pulls it on anyway. “Really cramping my style, here.”

“We can get you a new one,” Kanata says, with a smile.

“If you don’t spend the money on alcohol,” Misella says, standing up with the rucksack and hefting it over her shoulder.

“Oh, Misella, I can get that, it’s heavy,” Kanata says.

Misella looks at Kanata for a moment, her hand twitching on the bag, then she looks at Vicious.

“No,” she says, finally, looking back at Kanata and offering him a smile. “I can lift it just fine.”

“Really? Wow, Misella!” Kanata says. “When did you get so strong?”

Vicious claps Kanata on the back hard enough that his boots leave indents in the dirt. “Pretty hot when a girl can break your ribs, huh?”

“That’s not what I meant--”

“I’m going to break _your_ ribs.”

“Good!”

-

“You saved us,” Aegis says. He steps across the rented room, leaning against the window and looking at Vicious.

“Nah,” Vicious says, “you saved yourselves.”

“If it wasn’t for you--” Aegis begins.

“If you’re going to thank me, save your breath,” Vicious says, and Aegis lets out an annoyed noise. Aegis steps forward in a swift move, grabbing onto Vicious by the remnants of his coat; Vicious hears seams give and mentally resigns himself to being entirely shirtless until they can get to a town with a lick of fashion.

“Why can’t you accept,” Aegis says, “that you’re not as bad as you pretend to be?”

“I’m pretty bad,” Vicious says. “Ahh, am I rubbing off on you? Before you know it, you’ll be--”

“I’m not as good,” Aegis interrupts, “as I pretend I am.”

Vicious doesn’t know what to say to that. There’s something like adrenaline pressing through his veins, and his fight or flight instinct is so heavily weighted towards fight that he can’t handle the fact that he wants to spray himself out of this situation like a bullet, take the whole ass window with him and never see any of these people again.

He kisses Aegis. Aegis’ eyes widen for a moment, and then he’s kissing back, and there’s nothing gentle or romantic about it -- not like when Misella and Kanata hold hands or whatever the hell they do in the moonlight -- and they miss the bed entirely when they go down.

Distantly, Vicious thinks that he’s well and truly fucked, if he cares like this after all this time.

Less distantly, Vicious thinks about fucking.

-

“Kanata won’t break,” Misella says, one night, as she lays out her bedding. Vicious glances at her over his (stolen) bottle of rum. “That’s why we’re with you, I think. Kanata won’t break, and I won’t break, and Aegis won’t break.”

“Huh,” Vicious says, like he doesn’t understand, even though he does. 

“We’re already a little broken,” Misella says, softly, and looks at Vicious. “Aren’t you?”

Vicious stares at her, then downs half the bottle until his throat burns so much it feels like Misella’s lit him on fire.

“Nah,” Vicious lies, and offers her the bottle.

-

It turns out that the things Kanata and Misella do in the moonlight when they’re off on their own is a lot like the things that Vicious and Aegis do in the broad light of day when _they’re_ off on their own, so it isn’t exactly a surprise when things turn out the way they do. Misella is just as soft as she looks and just as hard as she appears, and by the time Kanata and Aegis get back from “gathering wood” -- a load of crap, given they’ve got their very own firestarter right there with them -- there’s a long, unspoken agreement between all of them.

It doesn’t feel like the start of something, or the end of something. It feels like a natural progression. There’s trust in the way Misella arches, and there’s trust in the way Kanata groans, and there’s trust in the way Aegis bares his throat, but worst of all there’s trust in the way Vicious reaches out for them, in the way he presses lips and teeth and fingers to things he shouldn’t.

He’s going to ruin them; he’s already ruined them. 

“I’ll set your bedroll on fire,” Misella says, later, when Vicious tries to steal her pillow when he thinks she isn’t looking; Kanata laughs, and Vicious smothers him with the pillow, instead, resulting in a three on one scuffle that results in Vicious having absolutely no bedding left.

He winds up with people pressed up against him in the morning, anyway.

-

“He’s not going to burn the world down, you know,” Aegis says, one day. “He wants to rebuild it.”

“Yeah, ‘cause it’s that easy,” Vicious says, leaning back and rolling his eyes.

“It isn’t,” Aegis says. “And it won’t be easy for any of us.”

“Don’t count me in,” Vicious says, “I’m not helpin’ with that shit.”

“Not for the world,” Aegis says. “But for him.”

Kanata is ahead of them, chatting to Misella, and she’s looking at him the way she always does: endeared and exasperated at the same time, fondness overpowering anything else. It’s starting to be the way she looks at Vicious, sometimes. It’s starting to be the way all of them look at each other.

“The only thing I’m good at is bringing things down,” Vicious says, very carefully, using literally all of the restraint he has at his disposal.

“Then it’ll be a learning experience for all of us,” Aegis says.

“Huh,” Vicious says, and Aegis drops the subject.

-

Vicious doesn’t know when it happened, or why it happened, or how it happened. Somewhere between “destroying the world” and “fighting god in a cage match”, he found something. Something that smells like a wood fireplace and fresh flowers and sword oil; something that exists in the sound of familiar laughter, in the taste of dinner and the feel of warmth no matter what way he presses.

He doesn’t deserve it, of course, because he doesn’t deserve anything he’s managed to get or take or steal -- but he has it nonetheless, and it’d be a shame to miss out on it, right?

He won’t put a name to it. He doesn’t need to, not when it’s right there.

It’s enough as it is.

**Author's Note:**

> "why did you write 4k words about an ot4 when we're only 4 chapters into the game" I LITERALLY CANNOT CONTROL MY OWN HANDS I JUST LOVE THEM VERY, VERY MUCH. I WANT TO WRITE SO MUCH FIC FOR THIS GAME ALREADY I CANNOT CONTROL MYSELF _HAVE YOU SEEN LUKE FON FABRE_
> 
> you can find me on twitter @warsfeils but all i do is eat hot chip and cry over tales


End file.
